These 'Hills' Are NOT Alive, Darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                  Whenever I see a play I dislike, I sit back and try to analyze why I am so disengaged.  Let me say first that "The Hills Of California" has a terrific acting ensemble.  Laura Donnelly as Veronica/Joan, and Leanne Best, as Gloria are outstanding.  Sam Mendes' direction is excellent, but the problem is this play is like a puzzle that has not been assembled.  All the potential pieces for greatens are there, but the work does not gel.  Part of the reason is Jez Butterworth never met a word he did not like--and he is NOT Charles Dickens!  This play does not need to be three hours long, but neither did any of Butterworth's other plays.  The author just does not know when to quit.  This play needed a dramaturg badly to work on it, so it could be the potentially great play I see amid all the mess.

                                     With a bevy of sisters gathered for their mother's passing, and the chronicling of what their mother did to her daughters, especially Gloria and Joan, makes what Mama Rose in the upcoming "Gypsy" does to her offspring seem tame by comparison.  Her daughters at least got somewhere; no one in this play really does.  Maybe that is the point.  The mother, Veronica is so bent on her daughters achieving success she did not, that Joan becomes a version of mother, Jill becomes a reclusive spinster, Gloria an embittered woman, and Ruby, well let's just say she is the least damaged.

                                          But, really, three hours of this????????????  Jez, honey you have got to learn to trim the dramatic fat and get to the meat of things.  Even if cut by a quarter, with the performances, "The Hills Of California" might have soared.  It still would not be great, but it would have been better than what was dished out to me the night I saw it.

                                              I should note--at intermission, as I made my way to the men's room, I saw hordes of people walking out.  I did not blame them, but, with me, a Theater Queen, hope springs eternal.  Maybe things would come to life in the second act.

                                               Revelations came a' plenty in Act Two, but the action still went on far too long.

                                               I cannot in good conscience recommend this play.  For those who want quality California stories, stay home and read John Steinbeck's Great American Novels--"The Grapes Of Wrath," and the even better "East Of Eden."

                                               "California, here we come!"  But not at this play, girls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!